Andrea Dainese of INFN Padova is deputy spokesperson of the ALICE experiment at CERN

Andrea Dainese of INFN Padova was recently appointed deputy-spokesperson of the ALICE experiment at CERN. This prestigious assignment was awarded to him starting from January 2026 for a duration of three years, as part of the new management team of the experiment, which also includes the spokesperson Kai Schweda of GSI Darmstadt and a second deputy spokesperson, Anthony Timmins of the University of Houston.

With more than 2000 participants, including physicists, engineers and technical staff, ALICE is one of the largest scientific collaborations worldwide. The experiment uses nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to study the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter at extremely high temperature, in which quarks and gluons are not confined within hadrons, and which constituted the primordial Universe a few microseconds after the Big Bang. Developing from this central goal, the ALICE physics programme extends by now to several other aspects of the strong interaction.

Andrea, who has been a member of the ALICE collaboration since 2000, when he started as a PhD student, has already held several roles within the collaboration, including those of Physics Coordinator and Physics Working Group Convener. Currently, as Upgrade Coordinator, he focuses on the preparation for the major upgrade ALICE 3 that the collaboration plans for the fourth long shutdown of LHC, in 2034-2035.

The Director, congratulating Andrea on behalf of the whole Section for this new prestigious appointment, emphasized that it is “a further recognition of the top quality of the scientific and technological contribution provided by our research groups, the result of the competence and dedication of our entire community of technicians, administrators, technologists and researchers”.

Contacts:
andrea.dainese@pd.infn.it